Israel opens ‘temporary’ route for residents to flee as troops and tanks push deeper into Gaza City – Middle East crisis live

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been in touch to share an update on the situation from Gaza via a Palestinian staff member in the territory.

Writing on Wednesday, Ahmed Al Waheidi said those fleeing the north for the south face “congested, damaged and dangerous” roads, with journeys taking “hours”.

In his update, he wrote:

I left my wife and children in the north yesterday and travelled six hours to come and look for somewhere we could stay in Deir al-Balah. I want to call them every five minutes and check that they are OK or not – it is a constant fear knowing the hostilities are so close to them. The other day, a building was damaged within only fifty metres of them. The constant sound of explosions is terrifying for them, and they can feel the blast impacts – shaking walls and shock waves of dust – from hundreds of meters away. This is what it’s like every day for people. Many wake thinking the situation cannot get worse, but it continues to deteriorate.

When I find somewhere, I will go back and get my family, but we don’t know yet how we will move our belongings down here. There are not enough trucks for people to use, and it’s too expensive for many people. Hundreds of families are losing their homes every day, and the vast majority cannot afford the cost of being displaced and moving to the south, so they are sleeping in the streets.

My wife’s nephew was severely injured recently, and we are his last remaining family. I don’t know how we will move him from the north down to here. My mind is overwhelmed with all the decisions we have to make and the lack of choices for any of them.

The roads are congested, damaged, and dangerous, with the few working vehicles in poor condition. Journeys take hours, often on foot, with no clear destination. Elderly or sick family members arrive exhausted in the south, where even here, many are left to sleep along the roads until they can find shelter.

Towards the end of the press conference, Kallas rejected suggestions that the EU has not done enough to put pressure on Israel and insisted the public opinion has shifted on this in recent months, as reflected by the proposed measures.

“The proposals [are] now on the table to put more pressure on Israeli government … now it’s up to the member states to discuss [them] in the council, which is problematic, as we know of the lines.

But what it shows, really, it shows that the public opinion in all the member states has, has really shifted. And when we have the discussions, all the member states or representatives, foreign ministers, agree that the situation is untenable.

So if we all agree on this, then the question is, what do we do about this; what are the tools in our hands?

And that’s why we have proposed, then from our commission, to go with these proposals. If these do not fly, then we can find other things, if we all agree that we need to do additional steps in order to have really change on the ground.”

This concludes the press conference.

Officials from the European Commission say the proposed measure would hit more than a third of Israel’s exports to the EU worth around €6bn, including key agricultural produce such as dates and nuts.

“Today marks a critical turning point in holding Israel accountable,” said Irish foreign minister Simon Harris.

But opposition from key member states, especially Germany and Italy, means it will struggle to get the backing of enough EU countries to go through.

Israel has already urged Brussels against pushing ahead.

“Pressure through sanctions will not work,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen.

The European Commission has proposed suspending some of the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement, 18 months after Ireland and Spain asked the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, to review the agreement in light of the war in Gaza.

Following her state of the union speech last week indicating a shift at the top of the EU, the commission’s presented a proposal today.

In addition it has announced it had put bilateral support for Israel on hold with the exception of contributions to support civil society and the Yad Vashem holocaust museum.

And it has proposed sanctions on Hamas, extremist ministers and violent settlers.

In a statement, the EU said the proposal on the trade agreement follows a review of Article 2 of the deal following “the blockade of humanitarian aid, the intensifying of military operations and the decision of the Israeli authorities to advance the settlement plan in the so-called E1 area of the West Bank”.

The proposed suspension must be ratified by member states who are already blocking a European Commission proposal to suspend Israel from part of the Horizon European science research programme.

Sally Rooney, Deborah Levy, Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen are among 20 authors urging French president Emmanuel Macron to resume a “lifeline” programme for evacuating Palestinian writers, scholars and artists from Gaza.

The Pause programme for writers and artists in emergency situations, as well as a student evacuation programme, were abruptly suspended by the French government at the beginning of August over a Palestinian student’s allegedly antisemitic online remarks, a decision that the letter-writing authors said amounted to a “collective punishment”.

“As writers, we urge you to restore this lifeline as soon as possible, and to call on other heads of state to create similar programmes”, says the letter, which was sent to Macron’s office on Friday.

Further signatories include Nobel laureates Abdulrazak Gurnah and JMG Le Clézio along with Anne Enright, Leïla Slimani, Madeleine Thien, Édouard Louis, Isabella Hammad, Didier Eribon, Naomi Klein, Max Porter, Alain Damasio, Mathias Énard, Kapka Kassabova, Karim Kattan and Rashid Khalidi.

The Pause programme was set up by the French government and the Collège de France in 2017 to help foreign researchers, scientists, intellectuals and artists who find themselves in emergency situations. It has since been used to offer French talent visas and give practical support for people from Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, a total of 31 Palestinian artists, writers and academics and their families have been sheltered in France through Pause and France’s student evacuation programme.

However, on 1 August, foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that “no evacuation of any kind” would continue while authorities were investigating allegedly antisemitic statements shared by a female student who had arrived in France from Gaza in July and was due to start attending classes at Sciences Po Lille University in the autumn.

“This suspension of evacuation programmes on the basis of one case of a racist social media post is a form of collective punishment at a time when all signatories to the Genocide Conventions should be doing their utmost to save Palestinians from annihilation and should refuse to be complicit in crimes against humanity”, the appeal to the president says.

Germany’s government has not yet formed a final view on EU proposals to impose sanctions on Israel over its war on Gaza, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.

When asked about the plans at a press conference, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said:

We are aware of the plans for sanctions. The [European] Commission has been discussing them for several days. They will be presented today and the German government has not yet formed a final opinion on them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it had supported the medical evacuations of 10 “critical” children from Gaza to the UK. These children were evacuated with 50 companions, the WHO said.

The PA news agency reports that the UK government said that it is working to make sure families receive “appropriate support” during their stay. More children are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

On Monday it was reported that two children and their families arrived in Scotland from Gaza for treatment.

A small number of children have already been brought to the UK for specialist medical care via an initiative by Project Pure Hope, and they are being treated privately.

In the UK, a cross-government taskforce has been working over recent weeks to coordinate the evacuation of these children, with officials describing it as a “complex humanitarian operation”.

Officials said that the children and their immediate family members were evacuated from Gaza to Jordan, where they were supported by British embassy staff and “robust” security checks were undertaken prior to their arrival into the UK. It comes as the UK government said that it is pushing Israel to ensure better protection for healthcare workers and medical infrastructure in Gaza.

UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said:

As we welcome the first group of children to the UK for urgent treatment, their arrival reflects our determined commitment to humanitarian action and the power of international cooperation.

We continue to call for the protection of medical infrastructure and health workers in Gaza, and for a huge increase in medicines and supplies to be allowed in.

The government is grateful to all partners who have assisted this operation, including the World Health Organization for their support with the evacuation process, the government of Jordan and Royal Jordanian for facilitating safe transit and the UK-emergency medical team and NHS clinical teams for their dedication in providing life-saving medical care to these young patients.

Israeli troops and tanks were pushing deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, the second day of a ground offensive that was widely condemned internationally, as Palestinians fled the devastated area en masse.

Palestinians have streamed out of the city – some by car, others on foot. Israel pledged to open another corridor along a road hugging Gaza’s coastline for two days on Wednesday to allow more people to evacuate.

Australian broadcaster SBS has indicated it will not follow the lead of a growing number of European Union countries and boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest if Israel is permitted to compete.

The decision on Israel’s inclusion will be made by the contest’s governing body in December, but SBS told the Guardian on Tuesday it intended to participate in the 2026 event in Vienna, regardless of December’s decision.

The deadline for broadcasters to file their applications for participation was initially to expire on Monday, followed by a 28-day grace period during which a country could subsequently withdraw its application without incurring a financial penalty.

But earlier this month the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced the Eurovision song contest reference group had decided to extend the deadline to mid-December, with the event’s director, Martin Green, issuing a statement saying he wanted to provide “additional flexibility and clarity” while the group undertook consultation with member broadcasters about country participation in next year’s event.

Ireland, Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands and Iceland have already signalled they are unwilling to participate if the EBU permits Israel to compete, as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to intensify.

The EBU excluded Russia from the competition shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The UK government has announced that a group of ill and injured children have been evacuated to Gaza and brought to the UK for NHS medical treatment.

According to the PA news agency, the UK health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said:

No one can fail to be distressed by the devastating impact the war has had on the children of Gaza, and I cannot imagine the fear and anguish their families have endured. It is a soul-destroying situation that compels us to act.

Every child deserves the chance to heal, to play, to simply be able to dream again. These young patients have witnessed horrors no child should ever see, but this marks the start of their journey towards recovery.

British foreign secretary Yvette Cooper added:

In Gaza, where the healthcare system has been decimated and hospitals are no longer functioning, there are severely ill children unable to get the medical care they need to survive.

As we welcome the first group of children to the UK for urgent treatment, their arrival reflects our determined commitment to humanitarian action and the power of international cooperation.

We continue to call for the protection of medical infrastructure and health workers in Gaza, and for a huge increase in medicines and supplies to be allowed in.

China said on Wednesday it “firmly opposes” the escalation of military operations in Gaza after Israel launched a major ground assault on Gaza City.

“China firmly opposes Israel’s escalation of military operations in Gaza and condemns all acts that harm civilians and violate international law,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said of the massive bombardment of Gaza City, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs released a statement on Wednesday saying they condemned “in the strongest terms” Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza.

The ministry wrote on X that the operation marked an “extension of the war of genocide” against the Palestinians and a “flagrant violation of international law”.

In its statement Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs said:

The ministry of foreign affairs warns that the Israeli occupation is seeking to undermine the prospects for peace in the region through systematic plans that pose a threat to both regional and international peace and security. These include its brutal genocidal war on Gaza, as well as its settlement, colonial and racist policies based on a logic of arogance, agression, and treachery.

This situation requires decisive international solidarity to compel it to comply with international legitimacy resolutions.

AFP have a bit more detail on the Israeli military’s ‘temporary’ route for Palestinians to flee Gaza City (see 7.48am BST).

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it was opening “a temporary transportation route” via Salah al-Din street. Its Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee said the corridor would remain open for just 48 hours from midday (9am GMT) on Thursday.

Until now, the army had urged residents to leave Gaza City via the coastal road towards what it calls a “humanitarian zone” farther south, including parts of al-Mawasi.

Salah al-Din street runs down the middle of the Gaza Strip from north to south.

The bombardment of Gaza City has been growing louder and more deadly for weeks, but in the early hours of Tuesday it felt like an earthquake that would never stop.

“Even when the bombings are not right next to us, we can clearly hear them, and the ground shakes beneath us with the intensity of the explosions,” said Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, 40.

Sahweil, a media researcher, said the dead and wounded from the night’s barrage had been taken to al-Shifa medical complex, where she heard the situation was “catastrophic”.

She had lost track of the latest news, however, as she tried to make the near-impossible decision of what to do to best protect her four children.

The Rashid coast road, the Israeli-designated “escape” route to the south, was jammed with the exhausted and desperate. Anyway, the cost of a ride was too high.

“On top of that, I don’t own a tent to give us shelter, and they are too expensive to buy. I would not be able to take all of the belongings and supplies I have already bought several times before,” Sahweil said. “Then there is the suffering we would face in searching for water and the lack of empty spaces to stay in. So if I leave, I would simply be going into the unknown.”

Like more than 90% of people in Gaza, the family has been displaced by the war. An overwhelming majority have been forced to move numerous times. Sahweil and her family have already been displaced 19 times.

Now, with the launch of a ground offensive, the Israeli army is calling on the estimated 1 million people sheltering in Gaza City to move south once more. But Sahweil and her family, and many others, have been to the south before and are aware it is no haven from violence.